Whatever Happened to Little Albert?

Harris, Benjamin (1979) Whatever Happened to Little Albert?. American Psychologist 34:pp. 151-160.

Abstract

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's 1920 conditioning of the infant Albert B. is a well known piece of social science folklore. Using published sources, this article reviews the study's actual procedures and its relationship to Watson's career and work. The article also presents a history of psychologists' accounts of the Albert study, focusing on the study's distortion by Watson himself, general textbook authors, behavior therapists, and most recently, a prominent learning theorist. The author proposes possible causes for these distortions and analyzes the Albert study as an example of myth making in the history of psychology.